Here's a Doctor, There's a Doctor
by donutsweeper
Summary: What do you get when you have a room full of Doctors? They spend as much time coming up with unflattering nicknames for each other as they do trying to figure out why they have been trapped together.


It was just a large, empty storage room until the TARDIS materialized in it. The room shook for a moment, as if adjusting to the intruder, before settling down. The door opened and the Doctor peeked his head out.

"This isn't the third moon of Haldorie. I wonder..." he trailed off at the unmistakable sound of a TARDIS blinking into existence. "Oh dear," he said upon seeing the familiar blue box. When the door opened the Doctor sighed deeply at the man who stepped out. "The Clown, of course. Just what did you do?" he accused.

"Me?" The other Doctor closed the door to his TARDIS behind him. "You are blaming me for this? How do you know..." but whatever he was going to say was drowned out by the sound of another TARDIS announcing its presence as it forced itself into the room.

The two Doctors waited as the door opened and another Doctor joined them. He looked them over for a second before explaining, "I was attempting to fix my TARDIS and get off Earth when suddenly I dematerialized and wound up here. What happened?"

"Oh, so this is your fault then!"

"Now, now," the first arrival put a restraining hand on his later self. "I am beginning to wonder if I get denser and more foolish with age. You," he pointed to the most recent to arrive, "Dandy, tell me exactly what you did, maybe we can fix this."

"Dandy?" The Doctor sounded insulted. "You can't just assume this is my fault. Maybe the Clown here-"

"Clown? Why, I-"

"Gentlemen, please!" The Doctor stepped between his younger-looking selves. "We need to figure out a solution before," he paused, hearing a familiar sound, "oh dear."

A fourth TARDIS whirred about before landing next to the other three. "Hello?" A familiar face peered out. "What do we have here?" he asked as he approached them.

"Teeth and Curls. How wonderful," the previous arrival sighed frustratedly.

"Teeth and Curls? Teeth and Curls! No need to be insulting..." He looked over at the other two Doctors for them to fill in an appropriate nickname.

"He's been dubbed the Dandy," the younger of the other Doctors supplied happily.

"And you're so much better off as the Clown!" The Dandy retorted.

"Doctors, please!" He held up his hands. "We need to focus here and figure out what happened. This has the potential for epic...oh no, not again."

Not surprisingly the whirring noise that interrupted him was followed by yet another TARDIS creating a strong breeze and depositing itself next to the other four. Not one of the Four Doctors in the room was surprised when a young man stepped out.

"Well, well, if it isn't Celery Boy. How nice of you to join us." Teeth and Curls gestured at the small group. "Meet the Dandy, the Clown and, err, Gramps." He cocked an eyebrow innocently. "And I say that with all the respect in the world." Gramps just glared at him in response.

Celery Boy looked from one Doctor to another. "What's going on?"

"I'm afraid we can not help you with that." Gramps explained. "We have no more explanation for what is happening than you do."

"I take it all of you appeared here against your will as I did."

"Yes, yes," replied the Clown. "One after another, in order of our regeneration, and we have no idea why or how this is happening. We can only assume that," he was interrupted by the sound of yet another TARDIS and sighed loudly. "Here we go again. That'll be our color blind incarnation."

"Blinding Coat Boy?" Teeth and Curls recommended with a grin.

"Bubbles?" suggested the Dandy.

"Now, now, boys. Be nice," chided Gramps gently, although even he couldn't completely keep a straight face when the object of their teasing emerged. The others either laughed, or tried hard not to.

"I'm sorry," Celery Boy finally said, "but I just have to ask, the coat?"

"What about my coat?" The newcomer seemed vaguely confused and offended.

"It's, well, I mean-"

"What Celery Boy over there is trying to say is that it looks like a rainbow vomited on it." Teeth and Curls cut straight to the heart of the matter. "None of us would have been caught dead in such a sartorial nightmare."

"Oh, and I suppose that scarf if the high point of fashion? Or that cape?" He gestured to what Teeth and Curls and the Dandy were wearing. "If anything, I was following in your footsteps!"

"Doctors, please!" Gramps clapped his hands loudly, trying to get their attention, but failing to do so.

"Our footsteps?" The Dandy was quite uncharacteristically yelling. "I'll have you know my attire was the height of fashion in its day, and while I can't speak for my successor's scarf, I must say that it is in no way as embarrassing as that coat."

"Height of fashion?" He snorted. "I was following decorative vegetables for heaven's sake! It's not as if following the clothing styles of Earth or any other planet has ever been high on our to do list."

"Well now," the Clown interrupted, "there is no need to be snide about it."

"Can we get back to the issue at hand, gentlemen? Please?" Celery Boy stepped in between his other selves and attempted to defuse the tension. "We need to get to the bottom of this before anyone else joins the party." He paused when he noticed a familiar sound starting up in the room and he ran a frustrated hand through his hair. "Never mind. Here we go again."

Teeth and Curls rapped on the newest TARDIS' door the second it became solid. "Come on out, Professor, welcome to the party."

"Professor? That bumbler gets the name 'Professor' and no one prods him about his silly waistcoat or ridiculous umbrella?"

"I never bumbled!" The Professor declared, exiting his TARDIS. "It is a well known tactic to manipulate events from behind the scenes by having your foes underestimate you. A trick I have used to my advantage before." He smiled at the Clown, who nodded briefly in response. "I don't suppose any of you would care to explain what is going on?"

"Well, we were about to discuss the situation before the Vomiting Rainbow here went off on his clothing tangent, but we don't really know very much." Teeth and Curls clamped Gramps on the shoulder. "Maybe you should take over, Old Man, you were here first."

"You called me Gramps before, now it's Old Man, the later regenerations have so little respect for their predecessors these days." He grinned mischievously at the resulting glare before continuing, "We simply do not know what is happening. I was traveling when my TARDIS suddenly veered off course and landed here. I was joined nearly immediately by my successor and then by his, although I believe you mentioned that at the time you were taken your TARDIS was malfunctioning?"

"Unfortunately." The Dandy admitted.

"And I have noticed that the period of time in between each arrival has been expanding. Although, I'm not sure what conclusion we can draw from that. But the appearances have been following the order of our regenerations. We don't know when it will stop or why it's happening in the first place."

"Sorry to interrupt, but I believe there is one thing we can be sure of." Celery Boy pointed to the wall of TARDISes "There's only enough room for two or three more before one will have to materialize on top of us!"

"That is something we should wish to avoid," Gramps conceded.

"Oh, you believe so?" the Vomiting Rainbow snidely replied.

"We know our individual TARDISes will not function in here, or at least mine no longer obeys my commands." He looked up to see the others nodding in agreement, that theirs did not work as well. "But has anyone explored this room yet? Do we know there are no exits? That there is no manner of escaping or figuring out who is doing this, or why, or how?"

"Ah, the Old Man makes an excellent point." The Clown bounced on his toes in excitement. "Spread out everyone! Reconnoiter! Gather information! We don't have much time."

The Seven Doctors barely had time to spread out and begin to look around before the inevitable happened: yet another TARDIS arrived.

"What happened? Where am I?" the newcomer asked, upon leaving his TARDIS.

"A better question would be _how _it happened. Or _when _are you." The Vomiting Rainbow sighed. "Welcome to the chaos, Casanova. And don't worry, none of us has any idea what's going on either."

"But I, wait, what do I call you?"

"Well, since all eight of us would respond to 'the Doctor' we've decided on nicknames based on characteristics or clothing choices instead. I've been dubbed 'Gramps' or 'Old Man,' much to my dismay."

"But the rest of our nicknames aren't much better. Celery Boy here and," pointing to the various Doctors, "the Clown, the Dandy, Teeth and Curls, the Professor, and, well," he practically whispered the last name, "the Vomiting Rainbow ."

"Did you _have _to tell him that?" the Vomiting Rainbow protested.

"We can deal with your hurt feelings later." Teeth and Curls brushed aside the nickname's protest. "There are no clues in this room whatsoever: no way in or out, no vortex signature, no temporal disturbances, nothing."

"I must concur," the Old Man agreed, "without more data, I'm afraid there is nothing we can do but wait until whoever planned this convergence makes themselves known to us. And I suppose we just hope that, when that occurs, the combined intelligence and ingenuity in this room is able to get ourselves out of this quandary."

"Quite so, Gramps." Teeth and Curls clapped the older Doctor gently on the back. "Quite so."

"Well," Celery Boy rubbed his hands together, "perhaps we should use this time to speculate. Who do we know who has the ability to pull off this sort of stunt?"

The eight Time Lords chatted animatedly for a few minutes bandying theories about before the familiar noise of time and space being shoved out of the way by yet another TARDIS caused them to raise their voices to the point of shouting.

"Hello!" The emerging man cheerfully greeted the others. "So what do we have here? A Doctor's convention?"

"Now, U-Boat Captain, I'm afraid we don't have time for frivolity. We must try to figure out what exactly has happened to us and how we hope to survive."

"Doctor!" A hologram appeared in the air above their heads. "By now you will have discovered that you are trapped here... Wait a minute. Why are there nine of you?"

"Master?" Celery Boy called out, "What have you done now?"

"This shouldn't have happened. I planned for every variable. My calculations were flawless, this should have trapped you here, in a pocket of space inaccessible from the vortex, thus rendering your TARDIS incapacitated, but I, this... I can't have this!" The Master smashed at something just out of the range of the hologram's projection and the vision flared and then winked out.

"Well, I see his mood hasn't improved any since my time," the Dandy joked.

Suddenly all nine TARDISes came to life. "Well, this is it, gentlemen!" Gramps smiled fondly at his successors. "Everyone back to his own TARDIS and hopefully we'll all be on our way - in our own timelines - before we know it!"

It was a mad dash as they each threw themselves into their respective TARDISes before each dematerialized, one by one, in the reverse order of their arrival. The room emptied quickly and other than the faint curses floating in from the open channel of the hologram projector everything was silent and still once more.


End file.
